I got Onyx my freshman year in college from a fellow band member local long-haired farmboy. Onyx lived in a dorm room for four months before he ever went outside (it was hard to sneak him past the RA). Worst case of agoraphopia I ever saw - that first trip into a world without a ceiling. He clutched the ground and slithered from wall to tree to bush - afraid he would fall off the planet.

Everybody liked Onyx except Bruce who dipped Onyx's tail in bleach and some of his hair fell out. But Onyx repaid him in kind by peeing in his underwear drawer every chance he got which earned Bruces respect and that was a pretty hard thing to do and they became good friends.

He came back with me my sophomore year and broke his leg after he bumped the stick that was propping the window under which he was sunning himself. Fractured in three places. Later in his life you could tell it still pained him in cold or damp weather.

Onyx never did get along with my first wife and refused to enter my home when we got married (although we'd meet in the front yard for a chat every so often) so he traded me in for my younger brother. Onyx made himself kind of famous in my home town because he had a propensity for sunning himself on the squad car that would be parked at the end of the alley waiting to catch speeders and then Onyx would be seen hanging on for dear life as that car took off after some motorist and the lights flashing and the siren going and Onyx singing right along with the siren. He was dumb or persistent (your pick) to do this on more than one occassion. I think he liked it actually.

He also liked to fall asleep in peoples cars if they left their windows rolled down so there were times we didn't see him for a couple of weeks, but he always managed to find his way back and bothered to do so which I think says something.

Onyx also liked to sleep in the window of my brother's second story bedroom. My brother awoke one afternoon (he kept late hours), yawned, stretched and in doing so inadventently knocked Onyx right out the window and two stories later he landed on his feet right in front of the neighbors Doberman.

He was never really quite the same after that. He finally stopped sleeping in windows. The worst insult was when we had him declawed. The squirrels tormented him since they knew he couldn't climb trees anymore. It was probably just as well.

Onyx was the feistiest animal I ever knew. He wasn't strong, nor particularly brave. He certainly wasn't what you would call handsome. But Onyx lived a full life and became something of a legend - if only within a family and a circle of friends. I don't suppose even I could ask for more.